Monthly Archives: September 2016

Every six years, the U.S. Geological Survey releases maps showing earthquake hazard rates across the U.S. Additionally, they provide the underlying raw data to the public. This allows us to look for patterns in the data and find better ways to visualize them than with a simple static map.

The geographic distribution of baseball loyalties provides significant insight into the social geography of our country. Our loyalties tend to follow distinct geographic patterns that, in some cases, follow the adage of rooting for the home team; in some cases, they tend to mirror patterns of population migration throughout the country. With baseball loyalties following a logical pattern of geo-spatial distribution, what insight can be gained from the characteristics of these populations? As a caveat, it bears mentioning that baseball fandom most likely does not (at least to our knowledge) hold any kind of social, economic, political or any other real-life implications beyond the misery that may fall upon you if your team is utterly useless (sorry Astros and Cubs fans). The Facebook Data Science Team examined the geographic source of Facebook likes on team pages.

When did you get your first job? Today we will look at the income levels of young employees in different states in America.

The Current Population Survey data provided by the Census Bureau allows us to see the income distributions for many different groups of people. How much does median income increase in the few years following the college graduation? Which states pay less to employees under 30?

It seems like no serious discussion about gun violence in the U.S. can happen without mentioning police violence.

Unfortunately (and strangely), there is no absolutely reliable source of data on gun violence incidents involving law enforcement officers. The Counted, a project by The Guardian, lists 1140 victims in 2015. This Washington Post infographic states a lower number: 965 people.

The highest number is reported by the Gun Violence Archive: 1477 people. However, this count also includes officer deaths (56 incidents). Still, it appears that it is the most reliable source available to the general public.

Inequality growth in the United States has been relatively stable for at least the last 50 years. There are multiple way to measure the growth, but the most well-known seems to be the Gini coefficient. Calculated using the area under the income distribution curve, it shows the difference between the given income distribution and one where everybody receives the same income.

There are a lot of ways to measure wage inequality (or any measure of income in general). Arguably, the most well-known and widely used is the Gini index.

It is most commonly used to compare income inequality in different countries, as well as in the same country over time. For example, in the U.S. it has been steadily rising for the last half century, increasing from 38.6 percent in 1968 to 47.7 percent in 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That means a pretty significant increase in income inequality – we’ll focus on the meaning of these numbers later.

In the United States, the film industry consists of large multinational corporations, major studios and independent studios. Last year Universal, which is the largest and leading film studio in the United States, posted $2.44 billion in box office revenues in North America, according to Statista.com. Movies released by Buena Vista (Disney) earned approximately $2.28 billion in North America. Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox reported about $1.6 billion and $1.3 billion respectively. Films made by Sony/Columbia earned nearly $966 million. Smaller companies, such as Paramount and Lionsgate, reported revenues of about $674 million and $673 million accordingly. The Weinstein Company, which specializes in independent movies (and discovered and brought wide recognition to Quentin Tarantino), made about $301 million in North American cinemas. Films made by New Line Cinema earned more than $337 million in North America.

In a previous post, we focused on how the popularity of the Hollywood’s most famous actors influenced the way parents chose first names for their children. Let’s see if the situation is any different for girls.

We’ll use the most complete source: Mass Shootings Tracker. Despite also being the most recent addition to the list, this database seems to provide the most reliable data. As of January 2016, it had data on 500 events, where 543 people were killed and 1976 were injured. More than half of them involved exactly four victims; the number of cases where more than six people were shot is just over 10 percent.

If you live outside of California, you probably wonder if earthquakes present an actual hazard in your state. We’ll shed some light on the issue.

The U.S. Geological Survey Earthquakes Program provides us with a lot of valuable data to use in our visualizations. Of course, we are especially interested in the history of U.S. earthquakes. What if we make an interactive visualization of all recorded events for the past 100 years?